Tag: Rhoads Brazos

Rhoads Brazos’s story “… and now He erases” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 15 January 2016. With “and now He erases . . .” I was striving for the ultimate apocalypse, one in which the whole world quite literally crumbles away. It turned out to be a rather bittersweet tale, though still amusing in small parts. The aforementioned “He” is never named, and his demise isn’t explained. The main character, clearly Evel Knievel, isn’t …

He calls me the Motorcycle Man. One word? Possibly. I’ve never seen it in print. Certainly never needed to scratch it on paper. The Boy knew my proper name up until last week, when he forgot. I forgive him. Besides, I like Motorcycle Man just fine. It says all it needs to. I’m forever wearing a white jumpsuit crossed with Dixie stars. My helmet appears on my head whenever I ride, but it’s gone when …

A: Almost all outside forces conspire against me. My son barges into my office, as nine-year-olds are wont to do, and tries to read my on-screen words. I’m a perfectionist by nature, so no one is allowed to see the first draft, but with him especially, I can’t shrink the screen quickly enough. I don’t want him to drink in the horrors of my writing and develop some sort of neurosis. As a parent, I feel I’m already doing unspoken psychological damage. I have to avoid anything blatantly scarring. This job is really hard.

At the same instant, my wife has been pestering me to continue a novella series I started for her amusement. I had bragged to her that I could craft a regency romance that would knock her socks off, providing I could give it my own unique twist. She doubted me, so of course I wrote it to prove how right I was. (This is standard husbandly behavior.) I’m not sure what genre the piece falls into. Picture a fusion of P.G. Wodehouse, Clive Barker, and Georgette Heyer. It’s charming in its lunacy. I could write five short stories in the place of a new novella, but just thinking about it now . . . perhaps I’ll build my daily wordcount and add another escapade.

I suppose the housecat is the only one who lets me work. He preferred my old boxy monitor, which made a toasty perch for him in the winter months, but he seems satisfied with the bench I’ve set up next to me. He has developed a habit of snoring, which I’ve never heard of afflicting a cat, but clearly it happens. It’s funny for ten minutes or so, until I find my breathing syncing with his own. That just feels weird to me, so I bump him to make him stop. Lord of the manor, and all that.

Rhoads Brazos’s story “… and now He erases” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 15 January 2016. Subscribe to our e-mail updates so you’ll know when new stories go live.

Rhoads has written stories across the entire spectrum of speculative fiction, from light fantasy to the most decrepit tales of horror to quirky sci-fi. He currently lives in Colorado with his wife and son.

Rhoads Brazos’s story “… and now He erases” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 15 January 2016. Subscribe to our e-mail updates so you’ll know when new stories go live.